Shannon here: Jessica White gives us a tour of her office, plus a chance to win a paperback copy of her Romantic Suspense, Song in the Dark. Comment or answer the question in this post to enter the drawing. Deadline: August 1st, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Jessica:
I’m a hobbit at heart. I love being at home surrounded by meaningful objects, dreaming up grand adventures but content to never go on them. So when my husband was offered a promotion, if we’d move from Texas to Oklahoma, I didn’t want to give up my cozy little home and move for the ninth time in our marriage. But a pay raise and a job my husband would enjoy doing won out. My condition to organize another move was that he find a house with a quiet space for an office and library for me.
Like a good hobbit husband, he chose one with a south-facing living room big enough for a sitting area and office space. Seeing it for the first time, I easily pictured hosting a critique group and book clubs in our home. The exposure means natural light all day long. The extra-wide front porch shades the room from direct heat. Double pane windows allow me to watch people and animals without the distraction of traffic noise. Needless to say, it’s perfect.
The sitting area is still a bit of a work in progress, but has a comfy sofa and two dining room chairs for seating. My hope chest that holds old photos and precious family heirlooms serves as a coffee table. Atop is a lazy Susan that holds cobalt glasses with my pens, binder clips, and candy stash for when I’m editing or my critique group meets.
I loved adding other special details. The area didn’t have an overhead light, so I chose a pendant fixture that looks like crumpled paper, which is fun and functional. Two works of art hang in the room, an oil painting of a sailing ship and a watercolor by my husband’s grandfather of a church on a hillside. They remind me to create works that will last longer than my lifetime and to focus on quality, not quantity.
On the office side, I have four sturdy bookshelves that hold all my books. It also displays my blue and green glass collection and my llama collection. I’m up to eight stuffed ones and a half dozen
items from a practical pen holder to llama inspired art. Author friends and readers love to send me pieces, which makes each one have a special story. Ellipses, Comma, and Full Stop (because Period has so many connotations) are my three larger llamas. I take them with me when I do speaking engagements or reader events.
I bought my desk secondhand for fifty dollars. I love the big wide top that gives me space for a half dozen books open or pages spread out around my laptop. On my desk I keep my llama planner and pen holder, as well as my laptop. On the corner sits a wooden toy called a decision maker. You ask a question and swing the pendulum. It will magnetize to a random answer of never, always, yes, no, maybe, letting me off the hook for making the decision myself. When I’m working on a story, I also bring my finger labyrinth from my prayer corner in my bedroom. I find tracing the labyrinth while working out story problems allows me to hear God’s solutions.
My favorite thing though is actually the view I have when I look up. I framed the words “Love never fails” to put above my shoe cabinet in the entry. Because I write about hard topics, it’s easy to fall into the abyss of the darkness and wonder how on earth I’ll get the characters out. But then I glance up and am reminded God can rescue us from anything because that’s what love does.
Love also builds a home. My office reminds me that I am loved. And I hope that love fills the pages of my stories.
About Jessica: Jessica is a prayer warrior who loves to encourage and create safe spaces for the hurting and lost. She’s committed to living out God’s love and standing for equality, diversity, and justice in her community and publishing.
She has a B.A. in Educational Studies and published her first book, Surviving the Stillness, in 2014. She’s a member of American Christian Fiction Writers. She also is a founding member of 10 Minute Novelists LLC, an international group of time-crunched writers. Learn more & connect: Jessica’s websitewhite.com
About the book – Song in the Dark:
After graduating from Juilliard, harpist Jenna Fields returns home to Albany to escape her manipulative ex and prove to her controlling mother that she can orchestrate her own life.
Homicide detective Dean Blackburn spends his days seeking justice for the dead. But darkness taints everything, including him.
When his three Dobermans lead him to Jenna playing in the park, he tries to resist the beautiful musician and focus on his cases. At least until he witnesses Jenna’s ex attempt to blackmail her and learns she’s being stalked, just like one of his homicide victims.
When her world crumbles beneath her feet, and Dean learns she has her own dark secrets, he helps Jenna see that the key to escaping her mother’s gilded cage is already in her hands.
Question for Readers: What is your most treasured possession?
Come back July 28th for Erin Howard!
Glad to have you back, Jessica. I have several things that are special to me. A paper mache trinket box decorated with sea shells that my son made for me at Vacation Bible School when he was around 7. A light fixture in my kitchen made from an old double wash basin that was my grandmother’s washing machine. An old aluminum dipper that belonged to my other grandparents. They had a well and kept water in a big bowl with a dipper for drinking.
We all drank out of the same bowl. It was the coldest, best water and no one ever got sick from all the germs. A music box my husband got me this past Christmas that plays How Great Thou Art.
Those are some amazing treasures. I love repurposed items with sentimental value. Thanks for sharing, Shannon.
one of my most prized possessions is a pottery bowl that belong to my great grandfather that he made biscuits in and taught me to make them in.
Shelia, I imagine that piece has both sentimental and sacred value. I treasure those pieces that remind me who God is. I think that piece would remind me that we are sacred vessels which He uses to create experiences and encounters, fruitful to the kingdom.
Hm…Winnie the Pooh..:) seriously, my hubby bought him when we started dating (he is huge) – so far he survived four kiddos lol
A brass horse that belonged to my father in law that my husband grandmother gave me. And some odd and ends that my belonged to my grandparents
Lol…I have several stuffies including my fox Toodles (from Hook) that kept me through my husband’s deployments when we were first married.
We have a few heirloom pieces from hubby’s grandma, spongeware bowls. And from my great Aunt Becky, a glass dish. But the most precious is the diamond that my grandma wore. My grandparents met as missionaries to China. Grandpa sent to Tiffany in NY in about 1900 with $25. He asked for the best diamond. It is 1/4 carat and they threw in the setting, which unfortunately broke after many years. But I still have the setting that Grandma wore.
That’s a really sweet story to go with the piece. My husband’s grandfather was a jeweler as a hobby while he was in the military. He made a jade heart and gave it to my husband to give to the woman he chose to marry. He gave it to me 12 days after we started dating in high school. We broke up a few months later because I was only 16 and not ready to get serious, but he told me to keep it. We got married 5 years later and have been married almost 18 years since. 🙂
I have a winner! Michele Kearce won the drawing. I appreciate Jessica for being my guest and everyone else for stopping by.